I'll start by saying I am a stupid man. The stupid child grew larger and arrived at the creature you see before you (if I'm signing your book, viewable via Premium Webcam, or just happen to be sitting in the same railway carriage).

Thoughtless compassion has seen me either get suckered a few times, or put myself at needless risk for questionable motives. I must be related to Dudley Do-Right... who was the idiot child in second grade who fell head-first into a deep, flooded, phone-cable trench "to rescue the little frogs who couldn't get up the side"? Yep.

I am also the five-year-old who walked down the aisle of the Anglican Church and told the vicar off because he was "putting water on the babies' heads and making them cry". Just bigger and a mite hairier is all.

I'm a soft touch by nature, if not by experience. The six-week-old kitten with the cigarette burns, the abandoned husky dog, and quite a number of other unhappy or unwanted critters, have found themselves at my front door. I don't know if the RSPCA, where these critters ended up, view me as a good guy or some creep who harms the beasties himself: I guess my own household’s furry and feathered members would have to speak up for me.

People I'm a little harder on. There was that incident back in '97 when the Haggard, Tear-Stained, Chav Woman showed up...

I'd gone to bed early, and was snoozing away about midnight, when the front door sounded. I wouldn't call it knocking, so much as giving me first-hand experience of life inside double kick-drums at a speed-metal show. Of course, I responded with all the christian love and compassion I could manage at such short notice.

"I'M GONNA RIP OFF YOUR ARM AND BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH THE WET END!"

I can manage to produce a fair few decibels when I have to. Okay, I am a pacifist, but like that Quaker with the gun ("Sir, thou standest where I am about to shoot!"), I figured the person who ran away was the person I didn't need to worry about hurting.

It wasn't to be. The aforementioned Tear-Stained, etc, was at the door. "Ooh, can I come in, I've been beaten up."

Now I was going to open the door. I didn't. Funnily enough it was one of the things I'd been told by a minister, about how (allegedly) women used to hide in closets and jump out naked at Billy Graham, to discredit him. Here was me, intending to go to college and become a minister, and the LAST thing I needed was sexual assault charges. Yes, cowardice and self-interest saved the day, as you will learn.

I asked Ms Tear-Stained if she had any injuries and could I call an ambulance. I had the cordless phone in my hand, and the mobile in my shorts. No, she didn't need an ambulance, so there was the "life-threatening" bit out of the way.

Thinking of her safety and stopping the perpetrator, I called the local plods, having asked her name and the name of her assailant. She told me "Herman Kafoops" or whatever name, had a domestic violence order against him. Now, just as I was reeling off the names I'd been given to the police operator, almost as if on cue...

The motion-sensor light over my gate activated and lit up the advancing figure of Mr Kafoops. He remained just at the fence, as if the light had interfered with his plans. I gave his full description to the police operator, reading it off quite loudly and clearly.

Kafoops began threatening Tear-Stained. Ever heard a local businessman doing his own TV adverts, reading something Very Badly And Woo-Den-Ly Off An..... Id-I-Ot...Board That Is Off Cam-Era? Well it was like that. There was no life, no passion, no anger in the threats, like he was a reluctant kid in a school end-of-year play, doing a speaking part when he'd studied for Third Tree, Stage Left.

I said to him that the police would soon be here. What the police had actually been telling me was that they couldn't get a car round for approximately thirty minutes, and what is more, no people existed matching the names Tear-Stained had given me for herself, Kafoops-who-was-obviously-not-Kafoo ps, or even the address she had given me.

Still, the news that Plod was on the way was a boost to Not-Kafoops. Muttering threats and imprecations with all his Oscar-winning skill, he slouched away up the street, away from the light.

Tear-stained then focused back on me. "Oh, I'm so shaken. Can I come inside for a cup of coffee?"

Again, my inner squad of AOG Moral Police said no. I told her the police would arrive soon and take her to a place of safety.

I didn't expect the stream of interesting insults and last despairing kick at the door before she took to the street in close pursuit of Not-Kafoops...

Ten minutes later, the Plods arrived. I told them the story from "Woe!" to "Go!"

Older Cop just nodded. "Mate, you've avoided a home invasion."

Bloody good thing I didn't open that door.

***

Anyway, this was going to be about another stray who rocked up at the door.

Fast forward to '99. I was doing college (fulltime condensed into three days and nights), unpaid (naturally!) production work at a christian radio station, and doing whatever small tasks my senior pastor would delegate to me (since my rather unpopular newsletter article about how "Jesus wasn't a nice, polite young man", I had ruffled some feathers).

I'd taken in Swamprat, one of the paid staff at the radio station, as a boarder. The costs of commuting to college, running the house, and living, were eating into my savings at over $100 a week, and I couldn't go on much longer.

Thus it was, that somebody had my back when the knock at the door came this time.

Again, it was late evening.

One of the two men at the door was at least semi-familiar to me. A chap of about thirty who'd probably look handsome except for his receding chin and VERY prominent upper front incisors, I'd seen him at a couple of the local pentecostal churches when I'd been a-visiting.

Sad Bunny, for so I shall call him, was always in at the thick of hand-raising, the Making Of Funny Noises For God, and any activity requiring a clump of people, as long as there wasn't thought involved. (Come to think of it, that left a lot of the non-ministry-team stuff open.)

I'd never gotten to talk to him at any after-service meet 'n' greets, partly because I hate those sessions, and partly because he always seemed to be hanging at the edge of another clump of blokes. I never gave it another thought.

Now here he was at my front door, with a chap whose feet were abnormally small and twisted, and obviously quite sore.

Bunny's companion was obviously a bit lacking in the IQ department. When the Bunny spoke to me, it became obvious that he himself was gifted with a little more than average simplicity.

"My friend's feet are sore and we need to get to town, please."

Okay, I can handle a bit of simplicity. Knowing that People Are Not Predictable, I quickly informed Swamprat that I would drive these chaps to town, via the main street, and that if I didn't return or phone him in fifteen minutes it was time to contact the police.

I can handle simplicity with comparative ease when I know I have a concealed Disable switch in the car and a mobile phone in my long sock. Experience has given me a few clues.

I delivered Bunny and his pal at the place I came to refer to as Misery Flats. The building made even my ramshackle dwelling look pretty good. Of course, I'd made mistake One...

***

A Friendless Bunny will turn to anybody who has shown him kindness, as sure as a wet Labrador will come to his people before shaking. And Bunny was better at not getting on with people than even your humble narrator.

I'm a rank amateur, but I suspect something in the schizoid line was Bunny's problem, and I knew nothing of his medication compliance. Still, there were ructions of a sort at Misery Flats, and I had to steer Bunny into crisis accommodation a couple of times. I don't think he was angling for a room at my place, but I never made it an option.

It occurs to me that the charismatic churches had little or no help for the poor unbalanced Wabbit: as long as he could do hallelujahs and arrive at services wearing a shirt and trousers, they were not concerned. For anything else, they had a small team of Bunny Wranglers, who sat near him and surreptitiously shadowed him all through the service, in damage-limitation mode.

(This would sort-of tie in with Tanya Levin's observation that Hillsong turns over a significant percentage of its congregation every few years: the focus is on the Worship Performance and the corporate image stuff, and individuals, especially those with needs, can get trampled.)

Anyway, the Bunny moved from pillar to post. One of the social enterprises I was doing at the time involved excess or slightly-stiff bread from a local bakery, and I would try and make sure Bunny got some. Also, "having bread to deliver" gave me a good excuse to get him moving when I'd had enough Bunny round the house.

He eventually "sold" me (I hadn't asked for them, but the cause was a good one!) a couple of dodgy fridges, presumably his, for $90.

“Sold” in this case means Bunny turned up with the items in his trailer, dropped them in my driveway, then told me I was buying them, which was totally news to me!

One of the fridges even worked, after a fashion. I didn't mind, as he was moving to NSW to try and reconnect with his father.

At least, I thought, there were a new set of people whose tolerance hadn't run out. I really didn't know how else to help him, and the churches in my circle were not equipped to help. (Maybe because Pentecostals don't appear to like mental illness: it's either Devils or Denial all the way in Fundieland!)

Saw him off, even gave him a few more bucks for petrol, and he phoned me a couple of times until I advised him to "save your money, you'll need it there".

A couple of years later, I read about a man with his name, having been accidentally killed by police in that particular area, while Acting Odd And Scary In Public. Poor bugger.

Some times you wish churches actually worked like what's on the label.

In my darker times I have to remind myself I can't pull frogs out of ditches without the risk of getting drowned. There's also the small matter of remembering that frogs can swim.